A Disarming Presence

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

I recently read about a procession of Catholics in Chicago making their way to an ICE detention center where a number of people were being held (October, 2025). A priest carrying the Eucharist in a monstrance under a canopy led the procession. Another priest carried a ciborium with eucharistic hosts. The group approached the center where state police stopped them and went into the facility to ask ICE agents if the priest could come in to distribute communion and pray with those being held. He told the group that they were not allowed in, so they held a communion prayer service outside of the building.

The image of Catholics wanting to pray with frightened people held against their will and not knowing their fate was heartening and disheartening at the same time. Good for those Catholics who recognized these people as fellow human beings in need of the comfort of prayer. Sad that their overseers viewed prayer and communion as a threat undermining the power wielded over them. I know that prisons in the Philly area hold religious services for even the most hardened of inmates. Religious fervor is often commonplace in prisons among people who have little else to hope for. Pope Francis made it a point of visiting prisoners whenever he came to a country for an official visit. One of his first acts as pope was to wash the feet of some inmates in a Rome prison.

I recall a picture in my high-school church history course that depicts Pope Leo the Great meeting with the feared leader of the Huns, Attila, in the fifth century. The outcome was that Attila did not sack Rome, as he had been doing throughout much of Europe. Perhaps there was more myth than history portrayed in the telling of the story, but it suggested that the presence of the holy can be disarming whereas a militaristic stance would have only escalated into the devastation of Rome. We could use some disarming today. In Latin American countries, the military is designed not to fight wars against foreigners but to keep their own citizens in line. In the United States, the military has always been intended to serve as protection against external threats. That distinction is being blurred today, as very militaristic agents camp outside of schools, churches, and places of business seeking to arrest anyone who looks like they might be in the country without proper documentation. Showing up to share communion with detainees is an attempt to be a disarming presence. Those people swept off the streets while dropping off their children at school deserve humane treatment, at least if there is any truth to the Christian message.

During the Crusades, when Christian knights were poised to attack Muslims warriors in Egypt, St. Francis of Assisi walked with a companion into the no-man’s-land between the battle lines. He was quickly picked up by Muslim soldiers who recognized him as a holy man. (Muslims of the time had their own men and women who dressed in simple robes and dedicated their lives to spiritual pursuits.) Francis met with the Muslim leader in Egypt, who was more interested in philosophy and spirituality than in military conquest. Francis and al-Kamil spent a week in conversation and appear to have had mutual respect for each other. It was a disarming moment, when “power over” was set aside, replaced by openminded companionship. The Catholics hoping to share communion with detainees in Chicago reflected a basic Christian vision of how to look upon our neighbors. Jesus didn’t intend his message “Love your neighbor as yourself” to be restricted to only those who look like us or who have filled out proper papers in their escape from the life-threatening dangers of their home country. It doesn’t take much imagination for Catholics who receive communion to realize that the body of Christ they are part of includes those people who populate the detention centers in our country. It’s right there in the bible. “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians).